Separate sleeping area's for parents and young kids

BIGdaddy

Expedition Leader
Ok so with a family of five with 3 small kids we're considering sleeping arrangements...We currently use an old American-made coleman dome tent that is about ready to be retired to pasture. We've checked out Turbo-tents and REI family tents, but the amount of gear for 5 people to camp is a significant load for us.(as well as a sizeable chunk of time for setup/take-down)

My wife and I got to talking about other optionsOne recent development is the construction of a homemade cargo platform and storage drawers at the same level as the rear seat backs when folded over.

IMG_4808.jpg

(I didn't specifically intend for the platform to be for sleeping, rather, I wanted to still be able to load long cargo into the trooper, and wanted a flat surface to be able to slide construction materials/theatre props into the cargo area.)

As it turns out this easily accomodates either my wife and I, OR all 3 kids with lots of room to spare when a ikea-type matress is laid out on top.


Some idea's that pop into my head are:

1. Custom campteq type pop-up build utilizing the HUGE sunroof in the trooper
2. Rooftop tent that would house either us, or the kids
3. Nice 2-man REI ground tent for my wife and I (that we already have), with the kids tucked away in the car.


Each has it's own issues, though.

1. Custom pop-top: $$$, plus, if I want to sell the car, the pop-top would have to go with the car or get sold to another trooper owner, rather than being retained.

2. Rooftop tent: Our last RTT was a maggiolina, and I know it would be fun for the kids, but my wife and I are a bit leery about having the kids in a separate area than us for sleeping. (One of the reasons for this being that our oldest has epilepsy and we'd prefer to be able to hear/reach her at night)

3. Ground tent: same as #2. I don't know that we could relax knowing that the kids are "somewhere else"


I think something like an Eezi-awn tent with an attached "floored" annex next to the back of the truck could work, but for it to work for us we'd probably want to leave the back door of the trooper swung open into the annex (might have to modify the wall against the rear of the car to make it be simliar to an SUV-tent) so we can hear the kids at night.

Anywho, just contemplating the options. My wife loves the idea of westfalia-style camper, but I'm just not sure I could keep the darned thing running. An SUV works for every other part of our life, so I'm hoping we can figure out the sleep setup. I DO hear a subie-powered westy camper calling my name sometimes, though. hahaha.

Love to hear some comments from expo'rs who've been there, done that.
 

1leglance

2007 Expedition Trophy Champion, Overland Certifie
Another option is a roof rack and Hannibal or Socal Teardrops awning with walls. You could do one off the side and leave a window open to listen to the kiddies as they sleep on cots or a tarp on the ground.

My older son was in his teens when we did the Continental Divide and he loved having his own "apartment" in the Hannibal side room while I was asleep in the roof top tent.
Recently I did a trip where my wife & I were sleeping inside my suburban and my younger son was sleeping in the Hannibal side room. Close but still with privacy if you want it.
 

coolfeet

Mark Keeler
I have a full size ford van that sleeps 2 adults and 2-3 kids, I built folding platform beds with cargo storage under the platforms. We can take 5 passengers.

Keep your trooper and get a rtt or a nice ground tent. I wish I still owned my trooper.
 

stioc

Expedition Leader
May be I skipped over it but why not a simple 6 to 8 person ground tent with a built-in divider/room?
 

BIGdaddy

Expedition Leader
Stioc, it's a valid question. The question of something different than our normal ground tent setup came when we realized how big of a sleeping area was created when I added the drawers.

If we were to stick with ground tents, we could just pick up a new family tent, a roof rack and be done, but that $ is actually about the same as a nice entry level tepui or CVT roof top tent.
 

12husky

Adventurer
Growing up, my parents were in one tent, my brother and I in another, and my sister in the van. We did a two week trip every summer this way.
 

stioc

Expedition Leader
I see what you mean though out here (SoCal) you can get away with a large ground tent for around $300 since you don't need a four season or a high $$ tent or a fancy canvas tent- unless you desire those out of personal preference. Coleman Instant Tents or a Eureka or even Kelty's family tents are quite a bit less than a RTT and more flexible IMHO. Several members here have gone back from the RTTs to the ground tents. I'm not trying to sway you from RTTs if that's what you really want just pointing out a cheaper alternative.

I also like the idea of those SUV tents too which could allow you to have two people sleep in the back of the truck and the others on the ground yet in the same enclosed area. The only issue could be when you're camping at an established campground and the parking spot is separated by a large log or some such.
 

BIGdaddy

Expedition Leader
Maybe one of those SUV tents that you can back the Trooper into?
Dennis

Thanks for the idea, Dennis. We've pretty much ruled them out for exactly the reason Stioc mentions. It's either all on the vehicle/in the vehicle or it's 10-20 paces away nestled in the tree's or scrub.
 

coolfeet

Mark Keeler
Brian,

Our family is "all in". We either sleep all in our van or in a big family tent. I have both the 6 person and 4 person REI Base camp tents. I have never used the 6 person tent as the kids are 11 & 13. We like to sleep close to keep warm even though we live in California. The nights are always cool where we camp. We camped at Pismo Beach in our van in November and my wife complained about the draft.

What about the Cascadia RTTs that have the huge on the ground annex? They have to be large enough for the kids.

Last fall when we camped on Sonora pass, we saw a family literally throw one of those Coleman Instant tents on the ground and set it up in under a minute! I am just shooting ideas for you to think about.

I met the owner of Cascadia while he was traveling through the Bay Area. The tents are pretty decent.

Here is the sleeping area of our van before our last trip. We don't camp with a mess like this. I was busy prepping the van. We sleep 2 on the back platform and 2-3 on the front platform. All in! Our favorite is the ground set up in the Base Camp 4 with the rain fly off.

9374596564_f3af2e13d1_h.jpg



9371820681_4b3e95fa5c_h.jpg


10808493654_d2e17b114e_h.jpg
 

jeepgc

Adventurer
Stioc, it's a valid question. The question of something different than our normal ground tent setup came when we realized how big of a sleeping area was created when I added the drawers.

If we were to stick with ground tents, we could just pick up a new family tent, a roof rack and be done, but that $ is actually about the same as a nice entry level tepui or CVT roof top tent.

Yeah, but you'd still need the rack for the RTT too?

We had the same dilemma, we have 2 daughters 8+11.

We chose to go with a 6 man ground tent that had a built in divider.

The tent has an adequate daytime living area for when the weather's not too good.

Not using the RTT gave us more roof top storage for non heavy gear.
 

BIGdaddy

Expedition Leader
Yeah, but you'd still need the rack for the RTT too?

We had the same dilemma, we have 2 daughters 8+11.

We chose to go with a 6 man ground tent that had a built in divider.

The tent has an adequate daytime living area for when the weather's not too good.

Not using the RTT gave us more roof top storage for non heavy gear.

We've resigned ourselves to the fact that with anything the size of my Trooper, we're going to need a rack to carry "the rest" of our gear, be it a ground tent, bags and pads, or a RTT...

We've had a maggiolina before, and while it's an AWEsome setup, it does take up a lot of roofspace. With a fold-over tent, at least you have the front of the rack for a few storage boxes with parts/spares, or maybe firewood crates, etc.

Alternatively, we do have a very good sized thule box that swallows pretty much all our sleeping equipment, if we were to use a ground tent of some kind, but at that point, we'd probably ALL be in the tent, removing the necessity of inside sleep quarters.

What kind of tent do you guys use, btw? (and thanks for the post. I appreciate your perspective!)
 

jeepgc

Adventurer
No problem bigdaddy, sorry I meant to post up our tent yesterday, here it is:

http://www.vango.co.uk/gb/6-person-tent/93-kinetic-v-600.html#

Can I recommend it? For a family tent yes I can, to cope with extremities of weather I'm not sure. I'll explain all on my family trip to Iceland thread - that I haven't got around to updating the next installment yet.

We spent 14 nights in Iceland last year, traveling to a different location every day so we had to put up and take down the tent every day, which it stood up to very well.
 

BIGdaddy

Expedition Leader
No problem bigdaddy, sorry I meant to post up our tent yesterday, here it is:

http://www.vango.co.uk/gb/6-person-tent/93-kinetic-v-600.html#

Can I recommend it? For a family tent yes I can, to cope with extremities of weather I'm not sure. I'll explain all on my family trip to Iceland thread - that I haven't got around to updating the next installment yet.

We spent 14 nights in Iceland last year, traveling to a different location every day so we had to put up and take down the tent every day, which it stood up to very well.

nice lookin' tent!

I look forward to your write-up. :)
 

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